Nash offers the wonderfully unique perspective of 80-something Rose, who has dementia yet wrestles for clarity as she careens around her senior care home. Words and people are fluid in Rose’s mind. Incontinence pants become incongruence pads. Care Manager becomes Scare Manager. Management provides lengthy presentations, discussing “Duty of Care” and “Best Practice.” Then he uses the terms “Person Centered,” and “Facilitating a Holistic Therapeutic Environment.” Rose is adept at identifying lies, and liars, and she keeps returning to the room where her friend lived before she was found dead after a fall—or was it really a push out of the window? This sets Rose off on an investigation that annoys the staff and upsets her children, who only wish that their mother were more docile. Instead, she fears the Angry Nurse, who enters her room carrying a pillow…for smothering? As the book draws to a close, we see many of Rose’s deepest fears being exposed, as police cars surround the building, escorting some of the staff away. Could Rose’s campaign have finally freed the patients?
